


burning through the trees

by joeyroy (ellohella)



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: Aliens, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apocalypse, Falling In Love, I love they, M/M, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Temporary Character Death, Time Fuckery, all deaths are temporary i am not strong enough to actually kill any of my kids, basically its the apocalypse a bunch of times, but it sort of...got bigger idk, groundhog day style reboot fic, idk this is a goddamn mess but i lowkey am living for it, jason is soft but he wont tell anyone, jason's internal monologue is a mood, kyle is irrepressible, kyle rayner saves the universe and jason todd helps him do it, more tags to come probably, this is majorly a character development fic for jay but also im jaykyle on main, this was supposed to be simple, timeline linchpin kyle rayner, white lantern kyle origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-09-24 12:54:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20358838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellohella/pseuds/joeyroy
Summary: the groundhog day time loop jaykyle fic that absolutely zero (0) people asked forwork title & chapter titles from take me as you please by tssf





	1. pulling off the nylon cover

He was living through the end of the world. Bodies lay scattered on the ground and it was all Jason could do not to look at their faces, to keep them anonymous so he didn’t completely lose his fucking mind. The enemy had been defeated but god, at what cost? They’d lost so many.

He’d been away from everything, when the first messages had started to come through. The first signals that something was really, absurdly wrong. The first one was from Dick, because of course the universe had conspired to kill him in that specific way, and it just said “Jay?,” because of course Dick Grayson couldn’t be straightforward with him even when an alien army had practically crash-landed on the grounds of Wayne Manor.

The case Jason had been working on seemed like another life now, but he remembered getting Dick’s message, ignoring it because he _didn’t have time for small talk_. The day after he’d gotten Dick’s message he’d completed his mission. The trafficking ring he’d been working for months to break up came down like a house of cards when Jason pulled on one tiny link, and all Jason knew was that it was too fucking easy to be over. That was when the wheels started turning, when the doubt started giving him ideas, like maybe he shouldn’t have ignored Dick’s message, maybe he shouldn’t have left Gotham when he did, maybe—

And then Tim called.

There were no words for the way Tim’s voice sounded when Jason finally picked up. “_Jason_,” he sighed, relieved and terrified and fucking wrecked all at once and Jason’s breath caught in his chest and he couldn’t move his arms and legs and he almost got into a motorcycle accident because he couldn’t process the emotion in Tim’s voice.

“Tim, what—What is it, Tim?” And god, it must’ve been the first time he’d ever spoken to Tim like that, the first time he’d ever called him by only his first name.

“Jason, Jay, there’s—I—“ and Jason had pushed him, prodded him to _spit it out_ but Tim didn’t have to because just then the first ship crashed in Jason’s neck of the woods, less than a mile from his position, and all of a sudden Jason understood.

“Tim, I—“ There was nothing to say. “Just…just hold on, okay? Hold on until I get there.”

For the rest of his life Jason could never figure out how the hell he got back to Gotham without engaging a single hostile. Maybe these aliens figured it was best to take out the stationary targets before they dealt with the likes of him, zipping around on his motorcycle. Guilt ate at him every minute of the seven hours it took him to get back to Gotham. People were dying around him, constantly, every moment. Sometimes Jason watched it happen. The apocalypse fucking sucked.

The thing was, though, if Jason was gonna die, he was gonna die in Gotham. So he kept driving, pushing himself to _go faster don’t stop just keep fucking driving_ because Tim’s voice on that phone call had scared him more than he would ever be able to admit. He pushed himself harder, leaning into the pain of the wounds he’d sustained on his mission, racking his brains to try to remember who he could call, who could help him save his city.

Bruce would’ve already called in the League, and if he hadn’t, Alfred would’ve done it for him. Dick and Tim and Damian had surely called in the Titans and Young Justice, not to mention the lengths of Oracle’s reach in the superhero community. Jason shuddered, realizing that if the invasion was as widespread as it seemed…the Gotham bats might be on their own. Hoping he was wrong, he sent a general distress signal to all of his contacts just as he drove into Gotham, then switched on his comms.

“This is Hood, entering Gotham City limits now. Status report.”

For a moment, it was hard to decipher any actual information, as everyone tried to talk at once. He caught a “Hood! Finally!” from Tim, and then the assorted voices of various bats all began to drown each other out. Jason told himself that was a good sign, that none of them were…they were all still fighting.

After a moment, Dick chimed in: “Hood. What took you so long?” and Jason could hear both the wry smile and the genuine relief in his voice.

“Yeah, well, I heard there was an open slot for someone to do some actual good around here,” Jason snarked back. “Now can someone give me a goddamn status update?”

It was Barbara who chimed in then, voice matter-of-fact even in the face of a crisis of this magnitude. “Alien vessels touched down on West Central Ave, Saint Helens Street, and in Danehy Park. Since then the invasion has spread and the majority of the West Side is currently out of our control. Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn and Catwoman have all officially allied with us against these aliens, and reinforcements may be incoming from the Justice League.”

“Hood.” Bruce’s voice. “Nightwing and Batgirl are trying to contain the aliens in the park at the moment. Spoiler is inbound on their position. They could use your reinforcement.”

“On it,” Jason said tersely, making a hard left toward the updated coordinates coming through to his bike’s computer.

“What’s the emergency, Todd?” chimed a cheerful voice from his right. Jason almost crashed his motorcycle. “Whoa, buddy, my bad, did I startle you?”

“Rayner,” Jason growled without looking up at Kyle, muscling his motorcycle back under control, “what the fuck are you doing here.”

“Uh, did you or did you not send a distress signal?” To Jason’s enduring annoyance, Kyle was keeping pace with Jason’s bike easily, still apparently unaware of how boned they were as a collective society.

“I did, but I sort of figured that with an alien invasion force currently making the Earth its bitch you might have somewhere else to be,” Jason said, stopping Kyle in his tracks.

He was already two blocks away by the time Kyle caught up. “Wait, there’s what? I got your distress signal as I was coming back to Earth, and—_shit_,” Kyle breathed, getting his first glimpse of the ugly motherfuckers they were up against. They had just turned the corner onto the street where Dick and Cass were holding the aliens back. As they drew closer, Steph dropped down from the side of a building and took her place next to Cass, fighting like hell against being driven back.

“Don’t just stand there, Rayner,” Jason said, barely waiting for his motorcycle to come to a stop before leaping off it and drawing his gun. “I know that ring’s not just there for decoration.” Kyle made a face—Jason pretended not to see—and then hurled a construct toward the closest alien, the green light alerting the other Bats to their presence.

“Hood!” cried Steph, turning to see who had arrived just as an alien sensed an opportunity and reached out a tentacle toward her.

“Spoiler—!” cried Dick, leaping toward the offending creature, but it just swiped him aside instead.

Jason’s blood boiled. Before he knew it he was practically on top of the alien that had almost taken Steph down, shooting at its various alien parts indiscriminately. These things were huge, blobby—like a giant octopus, almost, but with these giant fucking eyes that creeped him the hell out. “What are you looking at, you dumb fuck?” he growled, shooting at the thing’s legs with a venom he hadn’t felt in awhile. Even so, he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

**

Jason took down a bunch of the monsters on his own, and Kyle, ever competent, was a force to be reckoned with. Jason could see the fear in Kyle’s eyes whenever they drew closer to each other, and wondered again if there was somewhere else Kyle should be, someone else he should be fighting for.

Steph was the first to go down, already hurt and too tired to evade one of those fucking tentacles. Cass sprinted down to check on her, and from the way she screamed Jason knew Steph was gone. He almost threw up after that, but instead forced his body to comply with his demands and fought on, all his flippant humor about their impending deaths evaporating. It wasn’t funny anymore—nothing was funny anymore. At least he was going to die and he’d never have to think about any of this ever again.

Steph was the first casualty, but she wasn’t the last—they lost Duke, too, somewhere across town, and at one point Oracle mentioned she wasn’t sure Tim was going to make it out of this—and Jason was sure that elsewhere in the world, there were people and heroes and friends that were being hurt at the hands of these ugly bastards and it was all Jason could do to keep his hands from shaking as he pulled trigger after trigger, coordinated strikes with Dick and Kyle, tried to stay out of Cass’s way as she took down monster after monster unabetted.

In the end, it took the arrival of Supergirl in Gotham for the monsters to retreat, her heat vision wickedly effective against the monsters. She took three of them out before they all abruptly retreated to their ships. Just in time, Jason thought, as the three separate Gotham strike teams had been backed to within a four block radius of each other. They’d lost, and badly.

According to Supergirl, who had been up and down the East Coast, basically every other major city had suffered a similar fate. The casualties were innumerable. It was, Jason’s brain supplied helpfully, the fucking apocalypse.

As the heroes who could fly followed the alien vessels up into the atmosphere, making sure they were really leaving, Jason stood alone in the midst of the rubble of Gotham City. It had been completely destroyed, and as far as Jason could see were bodies and rubble. He turned, picking his way through the debris to find a way to be useful, and caught sight of Kyle, limping across the now-wide-open space where Gotham National Bank used to be.

“Rayner,” Jason called, walking toward the Green Lantern. “Sit the hell down.” He drew closer, catching sight of the wide gash across Kyle’s abdomen. Shit.

By the time he got to Kyle’s side, Kyle was barely standing upright, and the blood leaking sluggishly out of his wound was dark, spreading across his clothes in a way that made Jason’s hands shake to think about. “Kyle,” he said softly.

“J-Jason,” Kyle stuttered out, his jaw trembling with the bone chilling cold that Jason knew too well. “Jason, I—“

“Shh, Rayner. You’re good. Don’t talk.”

Kyle collapsed against Jason, and it was all Jason could do to keep them both upright. “M-my mom, she’s gonna—“

Jason cut him off, privately thinking Kyle’s mom would be lucky to have lived through all this. “I’ll take care of it all, Rayner, don’t worry. S’okay. You’re good. You—you helped us all. Thank you.” He was on his knees now, holding Kyle’s head in his lap, and it wasn’t that Jason didn’t know Kyle was dying, but…it wasn’t fair, and this was the fucking apocalypse but Kyle shouldn’t be dying in his arms right now, and the only thing Jason could think to do was just to talk him into death, talk to him until it was all over. So he talked. Talked about the mission he had been on before all this, talked about getting the distress call from Tim and how he’d rushed back to Gotham as fast as he could.

“And honestly, I was pretty shocked to see you on this side of the States, Rayner, kinda thought you’d be over on the west coast considering—“

“Jay.” Kyle’s voice was barely a whisper now, but his eyes were clear as he looked up to the sky above Jason’s head. His skin was…pale, so pale, and Jason swallowed hard, thankful his helmet covered his expression. Dying sucked, it was the least he could do not to make it worse for Kyle. “Jay, _look_,” Kyle insisted with a surprising amount of strength.

Jason looked.

There was…there was a _rift_ in the sky, and vaguely humanoid figures were flying through it. Jason blinked, confused. “What—“

And then he looked down at Kyle but Kyle was gone, in just the second he’d looked away, and now the world was a little darker, and maybe it was because of Kyle, and then a flash of bright light illuminated the sky where the rift gaped open and everything went black.

In the dark, Jason couldn’t feel Kyle anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :-) 
> 
> find me on twt at @saturngirlstan


	2. don't let it faze me

Jason was on his bike, driving south on the freeway, when he got a text from Dick that just said “Jay?”. He rolled his eyes, pocketed his phone, and kept driving. He’d been setting up for this mission for months, he wasn’t about to put it on hold for a social call with Dick Grayson.

The next time he stopped, though, something was tugging at the back of his mind and he couldn’t stop himself from pulling out his phone, sending a quick text back. “On a mission,” he typed, “talk later. good?”

It was only moments later that a call came through from Tim, of all people, and when Jason picked up the phone the sound of relief Tim made convinced him to turn his bike around immediately. He wasn’t too far out of Gotham, so he sent out a distress signal and sped toward the position Tim had given him for a rendezvous.

As he drove toward the city, the invasion Tim had warned him about began to spread. In the hour it took Jason to reach the outskirts of Gotham, he saw two of the alien ships, the blobby monsters just starting to emerge from them. He drove on, realizing his distress signal wasn’t going to be much use if all the other heroes were protecting their own cities and towns.

“What’s the emergency, Todd?” a voice chirped just overhead, and Jason had to focus hard on not crashing out of pure surprise. “Whoa, buddy, my bad, did I startle you?”

It was odd, Jason thought, the mixture of relief and dread that crept through his body when he looked up to see Kyle flying alongside him. Lucky for Jason, he was still wearing his helmet, so Kyle couldn’t accuse him of staring. “Rayner,” he said slowly. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, did you or did you not send a distress signal?” It was fucking annoying how Kyle easily kept up with Jason, even though Jason was driving well over the speed limit. Stupid capable Lantern.

“I did, but I sort of figured that with an alien invasion force currently making the Earth its bitch you might have somewhere else to be,” Jason said, and Kyle stopped in midair. This time, Jason almost _did_ crash, startled, when Kyle was suddenly gone from beside him. “Rayner, the _fuck_?”

“What d’you mean, Jason? What kind of—“ Kyle caught up then, just as they crested the hill into Gotham, and both Jason and Kyle were stricken into silence, because an entire section of the city was just—gone. In the distance, they could see the monsters, even from this far away, because they were fucking _enormous_, and both of them wordlessly sped up.

Jason had to admit, Kyle was fast, and able to easily surpass Jason’s bike. As he watched Kyle fly ahead, rising in the sky to get a better vantage point, a sudden pang of pure fear struck Jason. He shoved it aside, turning on his comms to report in. “This is Hood, entering Gotham City limits now. Status report?”

After an initial jumble of voices and words from all the Bats in Gotham, one voice came through. “Hood. What took you so long?” Dick said, and Jason could hear both the wry smile and the genuine relief in his voice.

And—sure. If this was the apocalypse, if these giant aliens were gonna take out the earth and Gotham City, like something in his gut was telling him, then, sure. Jason would die next to his siblings.

They met up with one of Bruce’s strike forces in the central part of the city, where several of the alien ships had crashed down. Jason parked his bike and drew his gun, and walked in closer to the octopus-like aliens, Kyle flying along behind him, clearly assessing the situation.

As he drew into range, Jason began to fire on the creatures, trying to find a weak spot. “Don’t just stand there,” he called, over his shoulder. “I know that ring isn’t just decorative, Kyle.” He pulled out his grapple gun, missing the way Kyle froze at his words. As Jason swung away, up toward the top of one of the monster’s heads, he heard a sickening noise and a horrifying scream.

Then Steph’s voice. “_No_!”

Jason turned, afraid of what he’d see, and recoiled, nearly tumbling from the roof of Gotham National Bank. Kyle was down, and Steph was battling back the alien that had put a tentacle _through Kyle’s abdomen_ and Christ, Jason had looked away for two fucking seconds and—

Kyle was dying. Jason’s vision whited out a little and he leaped into action. He killed the alien that had taken Kyle down like he’d been doing it his whole life, easily finding all of the creature’s weak spots as if they were familiar. All the while, he retreated toward Kyle, and when the thing finally went down, he turned away, shouting for Steph and Cass to cover him.

He knelt by Kyle’s side, disengaging the airlock on his helmet and pulling it off roughly. “Kyle.”

Kyle looked up at him, skin bleached deathly pale with pain and blood loss. “Jay, I—“ he reached out, squeezing Jason’s forearm with all the strength of a dying man. “I think we’ve done this before.” He didn’t get a chance to explain before the coughing started.

“Shh, Kyle, it’s…you’re having deja vu, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Jason squeezed Kyle’s hand, pretending not to notice the blood Kyle was coughing up. Dying fucking sucked, and he was gonna make sure Kyle’s was as easy as possible. Just like he’d done last time.

Wait.

Jason’s mind was reeling but he didn’t have time to process, because just like that Kyle was gone, and Steph was shouting “Um, Hood?” and he looked where she was pointing and a rift was opening in the sky, and suddenly everything went black, and all Jason had time to think was that _Kyle was right_.

**

Jason sat bolt upright, breathing heavily and clasping at the sheets. _Just a dream_, he thought, _it was just a dream_. Picking up his phone from the bedside table, he looked at the date and shivered. He was scheduled to go take down that trafficking ring today. According to his dream, this would also be the day the world ended.

_Just a dream_, Jason reminded himself, swinging his legs out of bed and standing up. And he would’ve believed it, too, if he hadn’t walked into his kitchen to find a disheveled-looking Kyle Rayner standing next to the stove. He shouted, reaching for a gun he didn’t have on him, and Kyle recoiled, holding his hands up in a gesture of goodwill.

“Whoa, buddy, my bad, did I—“

“—Startle you?” Jason finished. They stared at each other. “So I guess it wasn’t a dream, was it?” Jason sighed, crossing the room to the coffee maker. He was going to need a fuckload of caffeine to deal with this conversation.

“No,” said Kyle softly, and suddenly Jason remembered that Kyle had _died_. Twice. “We’re in a time loop.”

They stared at each other for a moment while Jason tried to figure out what the fuck to say. “Coffee?” was what he decided on.

Kyle shook his head. “‘M good. Listen, Jason, I’m…I don’t…I guess what I’m trying to say is…”

“Spit it out, Rayner, we don’t have forever.”

Kyle winced. “I just…thank you. You sat with me, both times. And you thought I’d never realize. So. I guess it’s just. I appreciate it.”

Jason blinked. “Yeah, well. I remember, y’know. What that’s like. So.”

“Yeah. Just thought I’d say that I appreciated it then and I…I appreciate it now.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, Kyle more relaxed after getting everything off his chest. Jason finished his coffee, and set the mug down with a gentle _clunk_.

“So,” he said. “Should we go kick some alien ass?”

**

It ended the same way the last two times had. Kyle, choking on his own blood in Jason’s arms. “Jay,” he coughed, reaching out to touch the white streak in Jason’s hair, too delirious to form a complete sentence. And then he was gone, and Jason was curled over his body, struggling to hold back tears of mixed frustration and grief.

And as the rift opened up in the sky and the world went dark, Jason could only think that maybe this was his hell, and he was doomed to watch Kyle die over and over again forever.

**

The next six (_six!_) loops ended the same. Every morning, when Jason woke up, the first thing he did was count the number of loops they’d gone through so far. It wasn’t like he ever forgot what number they were on—it was kind of difficult to forget your time loop partner dying in your arms repeatedly—Jason just liked to count because it grounded him, gave him something tangible to focus on when he started to panic at the enormity of what was happening around him.

On the morning of the ninth loop, Jason walked into the kitchen to find Kyle waiting, a cup of coffee already brewed for Jason. “Morning,” Kyle greeted him, voice a little gravelly like it always was when he came back from space. “I was thinking…can we talk?”

Jason shot him a look. “‘Bout what?” he asked, reaching across the counter for the coffee cup.

“I guess I was thinking…maybe we could take a break today.” The look in Kyle’s eyes was guarded, measured, like he was afraid Jason was going to shoot him down and he was going to have to—oh.

Kyle didn’t want to die again today.

“I—Rayner…Kyle.” Jason paused, searching for the words he wanted to say.

“I know. I know. I get it. There are people dying and it’s our job to do whatever we can to help them. I know. I’m sorry, I—“

“Kyle, it’s fine. We can take a day off.” And if Jason wasn’t already sure this was the right decision, the way Kyle bounded across the kitchen and pulled Jason into a hug confirmed it.

They spent the day on the couch in Jason’s apartment, savoring the sunshine that was coming in through the window while they could.

For a while, they played video games, laughing and trying to sabotage each other’s controllers in a way Jason hadn’t done in what felt like years.

It was about noon when the first crash impact shook the bones of Jason’s apartment building, and Kyle flinched so hard that Jason reached over to turn the video game console off. “Kyle,” he said, “c’mere.”

Kyle clung to Jason with a strength that took Jason’s breath away as they listened to the crashes of buildings coming down outside. They were still going to die today, Jason thought, but at least they would die together, with the knowledge that they would still wake up in the morning.

“Pretty fucked up, isn’t it?” Kyle said after awhile, his mouth inches away from Jason’s ear. Jason shivered involuntarily, and shifted closer to Kyle. “Took the end of the world for us to bury the hatchet and become actual friends.”

And Jason was fine, he was okay with all of this, but when he opened his mouth to say something back his breath caught in his throat just as the brick wall exploded in toward them, and the last thing he did was reach up his hand to protect the back of Kyle’s head, shift so that he was protecting Kyle with all of his bulk.

It wasn't Jason who watched the rift open up in the sky this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this chapter in 2 sittings and barely proofread i am a menace...im sorry this is getting out of hand.................i just love these boys and they're already lowkey soft and domestic
> 
> also, stephanie brown protection squad
> 
> thank you all for all the love on the first chapter! this is the first fic ive ever actually published so it means a lot!
> 
> listen to the soundtrack! - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/14u9vBX5wjfyYp4NiMS97d?si=WECmYVVaSae02oKSqGU2VQ
> 
> find me on twt: twitter.com/saturngirlstan
> 
> chat with me about this fic on cc: https://curiouscat.me/saturngirlstan


	3. you'll burn out the bulb

Jason woke up in his own bed, which felt strange considering the last thing he remembered was dying in an alien invasion. He could already smell the coffee Kyle was making in the kitchen, so he stood up slowly, wincing at the soreness and stiffness he felt. How was it, he thought as he walked to the kitchen, that he still felt the effects even when the time loop meant he hadn’t actually died? That just sucked, and—

It wasn’t Kyle in the kitchen.

Jason ducked out of sight the moment he realized, but the blonde girl standing there just rolled her eyes and said “I can hear you, you know.” Undeterred, Jason reached for the gun he kept hidden behind a tapestry in his hallway. “Look, Jason,” the girl sighed, as if they’d known each other for years. “I’m just going to tell you upfront that I’m a telepath, so I know you’re going for the gun behind the tapestry, and I’m just going to ask you to please not do that, or—oh, sprock it. Jacques?”

Before Jason had time to process her words, a fist appeared, apparently out of thin air, and punched Jason square in the jaw. _Wait_, Jason thought, his vision starting to black out, _what’d they do to Kyle?_

**

He came to on his couch, apparently unrestrained. The blonde girl from before sat across the room, along with a dark-skinned guy around Jason’s age, who Jason assumed was the “Jacques” who had punched his lights out.

“First of all,” said the girl, a fucking telepath who could hear exactly when Jason’s thoughts were coherent enough to start talking again, and wasn’t that just fucking peachy. “I’m sorry for having Jacques punch you.”

“Mmf.” Jason’s reply was far less eloquent than he would have preferred, and even with his vision still slightly hazy he could see the corners of Jacques’ mouth quirk up slightly. Fucking hell.

“Second of all, we didn’t hurt Kyle—“ Jason’s gaze snapped to the blonde— “we’re here to help you help him.”

Vision still clearing, Jason stared at the girl, who sat perched on the arm of his favorite chair as if it was slightly out of her comfort zone. Her red-and-white catsuit was made from some material Jason couldn’t quite recognize.

“Who are you people,” he croaked, voice sounding like he hadn’t spoken in ten years.

“We represent the Legion of Super Heroes,” said Jacques, looking like the most comfortable man in the world on the seat of the armchair. Even though, Jason thought nonsensically, his yellow-and-black super suit clashed terribly with the pattern of the slipcovers. “I am Invisible Kid.”

Jason snorted. “And I suppose you’re Saturn Lady?” he said, nodding toward the symbol of the planet Saturn on the blonde’s suit.

“Saturn Girl,” she said frostily. “My name is Imra.”

“Right,” Jason said, getting unsteadily to his feet. “Well, it’s been great to meet you, but my friend was supposed to be here awhile ago, and I dunno if you’ve heard, but—

_**But the world is scheduled to end today? But you’re in a time loop?**_ And….that was Imra’s voice, but inside his head. Jason whipped around.

“How do you know about the time loop?” Jason demanded. His voice sounded shaky even to him, but he needed to know how these people could possibly know about this when it was only theirs, only his and Kyle’s, and he needed to leave, call Kyle and figure out where he was because otherwise Kyle would die alone and Jason couldn’t—he couldn’t let that happen. And even as he thought it, it occurred to him that calling Kyle to ask why he hadn’t shown for a meetup they’d never verbally arranged would come off a little bit _hey, I shielded you with my body as we died in an alien invasion, pls respond,_ but he couldn’t care. If it would save Kyle from dying yet again, he’d do it anyway.

**_You care about him_**, came Imra’s voice, winding through his head like worms in an apple.

**_That’s not a question_**, said Jason, and apparently Imra’s telepathy could go both ways, because the warmth that spread through his mind then definitely wasn’t from his end.

** _I didn’t have to ask. _ **

**

Jacques and Imra couldn’t tell him the mechanics of the time loop, it turned out, but they did know who had created it. They sat in Jason’s living room, drinking coffee Jacques had made.

“We noticed a…ripple…in time,” Imra said slowly, as though she was choosing her words carefully. “Something in the timeline had gone a little bit wrong.” As she spoke, Jason felt, rather than heard, the shaking of the ground as the first alien ships landed.

“The invasion is supposed to end differently,” Jason guessed.

Jacques nodded, swirling coffee around in his mug. “It’s what we call a keystone event—it influences much of the other history around this period. Obviously, if an event like that is compromised, it can have far-reaching effects.”

“And this…this alien invasion is so major that you felt the effects in the 31st century?” It had taken Jason awhile to believe that Imra and Jacques were actually from the future. It still felt bizarre to him, just like all the other fantastical things that happened on a daily basis to him and his friends. Jason was just a kid from Gotham, not an Amazon, or an alien, or a space cop like Kyle.

“It…has far reaching implications, yes,” Imra said. The screaming started then, outside Jason’s window, and he tried to tune it out.

“Well?”

“We can’t…Jason, if we reveal too much to you…you can’t know the future. All we can tell you is that it’s related to Kyle.”

“As soon as we figured out what was going on, Brainiac-5—he’s a Legionnaire—created the technology to start the time loop. I…don’t understand much of what Brainy says, usually, but from what I did get, the loop is anchored to a specific moment in time that needs to be changed. Once it’s changed and the timeline is restored, the anchor will no longer exist and the loop will end.”

Jason considered this. “Kyle isn’t supposed to die,” he said confidently, a new hope flooding into his voice. “If I save Kyle, this will all end, right?”

Jacques and Imra looked at each other, clearly communicating telepathically. “No,” Imra said carefully, “he’s not supposed to die.”

They were tiptoeing around _something_, Jason knew, but he didn’t care, couldn’t care, because the most important thing was that he could save Kyle, it didn’t have to end up like it had the other times—Kyle lifeless in Jason’s arms, the despair eating a hole in Jason’s heart, Steph’s shouting when she realized the med evac she’d called for was unnecessary—it could be _different_.

That was all that mattered, Jason thought, standing. He locked eyes with Imra, knowing she was listening in on his thoughts, knowing she had heard his moment of realization. Imra’s expression was guarded, and her hands reached up to fiddle with her long blonde ponytail. Next to her, Jacques looked uncomfortable for the first time. And maybe it was something in their faces, or maybe Imra let something through their telepathic link, or maybe something else entirely, but—

“It’s me who’s supposed to die,” Jason said, spine ramrod straight. Jacques looked uneasy, squirming in Jason’s armchair, and Imra’s face had closed off even more. Neither of them said a word. “I’m going to die for Kyle,” Jason said aloud, turning the words over in his mouth.

And then the brick wall exploded inward, just like it had last time, and Jason didn’t even have time to cry out.

**

Jason woke up alone again. Kyle wasn’t in the kitchen, and neither were Jacques or Imra. He made coffee, but couldn’t get the ratio of milk and sugar right, so he downed it in one gulp and left the mug in the sink.

He put on his Red Hood costume and tidied up his apartment a little before he left. This would probably be the last time he saw this place, he thought, standing in the doorway. He took in the armchair that had clashed so horribly with Jacques’s outfit, the shelf of all his favorite books across the room from the shelf of all his other books, the open archway into the kitchen, the big plush rug he’d picked out at an antique fair, the sunlight illuminating it all. He smiled softly as he closed the door behind him, took the steps down two at a time to get to where he’d parked his motorcycle. It’d been…well, if not a _good_ life, then an okay one. It’d had its moments.

He started making his way toward Gotham proper, sending out his distress signal just like the other times. His apartment—his _primary_ apartment at least—was in the northern suburbs of Gotham, so he drove south, weaving in and out of lunch hour traffic.

“What’s the emergency, Todd?” came Kyle’s voice, to his right, and Jason grinned under the Red Hood mask.

“Took ya long enough, Rayner,” he shot back as the ground shook with the impact of an alien ship. “Where were you yesterday?” Jason asked, steadying his bike carefully.

Kyle looked confused. “Yesterday?” he asked, flying closer to Jason so he didn’t have to shout. “And what the hell was _that_?”

“Aliens, Kyle, remember? The hell happened to you?” Jason slowed as Kyle stopped short in midair, just like he’d done the first—_fuck_. Imra must have blocked Kyle’s memories of the time loop. He stared at Kyle for a moment. Maybe, he thought, this would make his job easier. “Never mind,” he said, letting his voice go flat. “Let’s just go kick some alien ass.”

**

As they rode into Gotham, Jason activated his communicator, getting a location from Nightwing. They were earlier than usual this time, so the whole bat-squad was together, fighting a bunch of aliens in the central part of the North End. And, shit, okay. Jason was gonna die standing right next to his siblings, in the city that made them all, and he wasn’t even upset.

He teamed up with Cass for awhile, but it was clear she didn’t really need his help. He dropped in next to Steph, but when she was injured, he fell back in with Kyle. It was funny, he thought, like, ironic-funny, that fighting these aliens alongside Kyle was so smooth. Kyle didn’t remember anything, but he fell into their usual patterns with the effortlessness of a sense memory, and Jason found himself watching out of the corner of his eye while Kyle fought. He’d always known Kyle had a way with the green-light constructs he wielded, but seeing it this close just reminded Jason that Kyle was, at his core, an artist.

A tentacle swept Jason off his feet, and he tumbled backwards, but before he could react, he landed on a soft, plush surface that could only be one of Kyle’s constructs.

“Don’t go falling for me, Jason,” Kyle joked, grinning, as he set Jason down on the ground.

Jason forced a laugh. “You wish, Rayner,” he said, thankful that his helmet covered his face.

By the time Supergirl arrived to help them take down the monsters, Jason still hadn’t found a way to take Kyle’s place. They were supervising the monsters’ retreat to their ships, walking side-by-side, when, suddenly, Kyle stopped.

“Jay,” he said, his voice choked off. “Have we—have we done this before?”

Jason turned to look at Kyle, an odd nervousness filling his chest in anticipation of Kyle’s reaction. But before he could do more than nod slowly, a look of pure horror filled Kyle’s eyes and Jason felt a stabbing pain through his back.

“_Jason_!” Kyle screamed as he fell, running forward to catch him before he hit the ground. “Supergirl, they’re not retreating!”

This was the moment, Jason thought. He’d ended the time loop, finally, and Kyle could live past this moment in peace. His thoughts were starting to fray at the edges, no longer making much sense, and he reached out to tap Kyle’s chest.

“Kyle,” he croaked out, “helmet.”

Kyle helped him disengage the locks on his helmet and toss it to the side. Everything was a little fuzzy around the edges now, but it was better than looking through the lenses in his helmet. He could see Kyle’s face now, down to the unshed tears that were lurking, dammed up behind his mask. “Better?” Kyle asked, voice soft.

“Mm,” Jason hummed, smiling. His body had numbed, whether from shock or an assist from Imra he wasn’t sure, and he felt no pain anymore. Just relief. “See you,” Jason said with the last of his energy, and then he lost consciousness.

He didn’t see Kyle cry, or hear the shocked cries of his family when they saw him, or feel the shift in time when the rift opened overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um so.......IM SORRY...............  
this took me forever bc i moved this week and i am very much still picking up the pieces but don't worry im not going anywhere i promise!  
i love this chapter so much.......our boy is in love......not even a telepathic block can stop kyle from remembering jason....the list is endless.  
plus the legion shows up here which is mainly just a dumbass hyperfixation gift from me, twitter user saturngirlstan.  
anyway thank you all for all the love on this so far......we are really getting there!!!
> 
> \--
> 
> follow me on twt: twitter.com/saturngirlstan  
ask me questions/talk about headcanons: curiouscat.me/saturngirlstan  
burning through the trees ~official playlist~: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/14u9vBX5wjfyYp4NiMS97d?si=JrgOz_0hTyi_H800t-14Hg


	4. taste me, baby

Jason woke with a start. _No_, he thought. _No, it’s supposed to be over, I—_

There was a crash from the direction of the kitchen. Jason sat up and got out of bed, grabbing the gun he kept in his bedside drawer just in case.

He crept out to the living room, peering around the corner, and found…Kyle, in civilian clothes, carefully righting the plant stand next to the window, a green construct holding up the plant so it wouldn’t topple over. Jason grinned, putting his gun down on the bookshelf in the hallway. He leaned up against the wall and watched as Kyle righted the plant stand and gingerly placed the plant back up on top, stepping back to examine his handiwork.

“Breaking my shit?” Jason said, and watched as Kyle whirled around.

“Jay!” Kyle’s voice was warm as he strode over to Jason and hugged him. “You’re alive!”

Stunned into silence, Jason let his hands come up to Kyle’s broad back to return the hug. “I…yeah. Time loop, remember?” Even as he said it, he realized he couldn’t be sure what Kyle remembered or didn’t, thanks to Imra’s interference.

Kyle pulled back, face pink. His hands lingered on Jason’s arms, and Jason realized with a sudden shiver that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He’d never felt Kyle’s hands on his skin before, but they were warm and smooth and Jason could feel how strong they were. _Shut up shut up shut up_, he told his brain. This was _so_ not the time to fixate. Kyle’s dark hair was falling into his eyes, and Jason fought a ridiculous urge to brush it away for him.

“I remember,” Kyle said quietly, voice rough. They were still standing close enough that Kyle had to tilt his head back a little to look up at Jason. Close enough that Jason could see the faint freckles that littered Kyle’s nose and cheeks. “I don’t know how I forgot.”

“Hey,” said Jason sharply, bringing a hand up to rest by Kyle’s ribs. “It’s not your fault, Kyle. There’s…there was a telepathic block. You didn’t…it’s not your fault.”

“I—I didn’t remember _anything_, Jason, and then all of a sudden it hit me, and I…don’t want to do this anymore.” It seemed an emotional dam had broken, and suddenly Kyle’s green eyes were bright with tears, and Jason’s gut twisted as he pulled Kyle closer again. “I can’t watch you die again, Jay,” said Kyle, and Jason could practically feel Kyle’s voice vibrate through him.

With Kyle this close, it was hard to deny the way Jason’s skin broke out in goosebumps whenever he felt the warmth Kyle seemed to radiate. Ignoring his own better judgment, he reached out a hand, brushed Kyle’s hair out of his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere,” he lied, thumb resting on Kyle’s cheekbone for a moment, and okay. Jason was doing a bad job not fixating right now.

Kyle’s breath hitched so hard that Jason felt it in his own chest. “Jay…” he said, voice shaky, leaning into Jason’s touch so that they were barely inches apart.

Jason was burning with anticipation as he wound an arm around Kyle’s waist. “Can I?” he asked. “Can I kiss you?” He leaned in a little, licked his lips as Kyle nodded.

“Yeah,” Kyle said, his voice raw in a way Jason had never heard before, and then—

Jason kissed him.

The way Kyle sighed, gripped at his hips like Jason was the only thing anchoring him here—it was enough, for Jason. They kissed like the world was ending, which it was, so Jason couldn’t even tease Kyle for being dramatic.

And Jason _knew_ it couldn’t last, knew he had to die for Kyle to live, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t bring himself to deny what Kyle so clearly wanted, not when Kyle reacted so strongly to every little move Jason made.

“Ky,” he murmured against Kyle’s lips, and Kyle _shook_ under his hands, clinging to Jason’s bare shoulders and pulling at his hair gently in a way that was positively irresistible.

He wanted Kyle to have this once he was gone, wanted him to have the memory of this moment and the knowledge of how it felt to be pressed together like this in Jason’s living room, the thick fabric of Kyle’s gray henley soft against Jason’s bare chest. But even as Jason trailed his lips down to Kyle’s jaw and then his neck, stomach flipping at the little whiny noise Kyle made, he knew it wasn’t fair to make him hold onto this if he didn’t have to.

When the ground began to shake underneath them, Kyle froze up, and so Jason held him close, humming softly and running a hand through Kyle’s hair to comfort him.

_**Give him more**_, he sent to Imra, reopening their telepathic link. _**Make it stronger this time**_. If Jason had to die, he could at least make it as easy as possible for Kyle. He could let Kyle forget.

It was strange, Jason thought, how quickly he had gotten used to the futility of all this. Used to not running, used to not fighting the end. He took the direness for granted now. And maybe that was what he liked about Kyle, because Kyle never lost sight of what was happening. Kyle never stopped feeling it.

And as they held each other, standing in Jason’s living room with Kyle’s back pressed to the wall because it made him feel better when he was closed in like that, Jason knew that was why Kyle had to live. The world deserved Kyle, deserved someone who would never lose the forest for the trees. And Kyle deserved the world—all the beautiful bits, at least—in all its profoundly ugly glory. Kyle deserved to be the one who saved the world, and if Jason had to die to give him that chance, he’d gladly make that sacrifice. Just as he dropped his head onto Kyle’s shoulder, buried his face in the crook of Kyle’s neck, one of the monsters outside flailed a tentacle into Jason’s building, and the ceiling came down on top of them.

Kyle was gone immediately, and Jason barely had any time to feel his grief before the rift opened with a flash and the Legion flowed through.

—

When Jason woke up next, his apartment was empty, and even though he had been expecting that, it still hurt to know Kyle didn’t remember anything that had happened in the past several days.

He breathed in deep, swinging his legs out of bed and stretching his back. The visual evidence of the abuse the time loop had lavished on his body was gone, as always, but the aching soreness was probably permanently woven into his bones by now. He wondered if Kyle felt this too, the dull pain of being crushed by buildings and the residual soreness that came after a shock.

He went through the motions, ate something for the sake of eating something as he pulled on his uniform. As he grabbed his helmet from the kitchen counter, the plant next to the window caught his eye. He would need to ask someone to water it for him, when he was gone. Maybe Kyle would take it. He wouldn’t remember knocking it over, yesterday, but maybe…

Who was he kidding, Jason thought. This apartment would be gone when he was—he had seen how it would go. He gave the plant a little extra water before he left anyway, suddenly gripped by a fit of sentimentality.

He drove to Gotham faster than usual, gripped by a sense of urgency. He wanted to die with yesterday fresh in his mind, with the memories of Kyle’s lips on his at the front of his brain. He had to finish this while he could be sure Imra’s telepathic block was intact, before Kyle had to die again.

Kyle met him at the usual spot that wasn’t _their_ usual spot anymore, and if Kyle noticed that Jason couldn’t look at him directly, he didn’t mention it. It hurt more than Jason had expected, seeing Kyle again.

It hurt to have to explain the alien invasion to Kyle, and to see the shock in Kyle’s eyes when he realized that yes, these motherfuckers were really going to destroy the city and there wasn’t much they could do about it. It hurt to watch Kyle fly ahead of him, drifting upwards to find a better vantage point.

There was something about the authenticity of Kyle’s reactions to everything that made this all feel realer than it had in awhile. They closed in on the rendezvous point Bruce had sent him on the comms, and Jason’s hands shook on the handlebars of his motorcycle. _Nerves_, he thought. _Still afraid to die after all this time_.

He ditched the bike while Steph briefed him and Kyle, watching as Cass and Dick practically danced around the monsters. Kyle was restless, pushing off the ground and then landing again moments later. Jason fought the instinct to reach out and grab his wrist to still him.

They moved onto the battlefield together, like always. “You got a play?” asked Kyle, armoring himself in green constructs.

Jason shrugged. “Go for the eyes and the legs, and try not to die, Rayner,” he said flippantly, with more confidence than he felt. Kyle blinked at him, tilting his head to look at Jason as if something wasn’t quite making sense. “C’mon, Rayner,” Jason said, ignoring the look on Kyle’s face as he started to move into position. “I know that ring’s not just for decoration.”

Kyle smirked, and then he was gone, rocketing off into the sky, evading hits as he dealt out damage with his ring. The faint greenish glow that always surrounded him when he used his powers was out in full force, a visual representation of Kyle’s potency. Not for the first time, Jason thought about how screwed the bats would have been if Kyle hadn’t been doing the cosmic equivalent of “passing through the neighborhood.”

The advantage of the time loop, Jason thought, was that he had killing these motherfuckers down to a science. He shot one right in the eye as it was about to grab Steph in midair, and the thing flailed around, getting in the way of the one Dick was fighting so that Dick could finally take the monster out.

He tore up the battlefield, which had grown to span almost the entire east-west axis of Gotham City. The alien invaders were too big, too powerful to be halted, and they had no regard for buildings or the people inside them. Jason ran, keeping Kyle in his sights always, vaulting over prone tentacles and trying not to feel the screams of the civilians in the falling city around them. Dozens of monsters flailed around him, and he winced as one caught at his ankle. A well-placed bullet to the tentacle made the thing let go, and he ran off again.

Jason saw it before Kyle did--a thick, greenish tentacle reaching out, ready to pluck Kyle out of the air. Oblivious, Kyle continued his struggle against another one of the aliens, muscling one away from a miraculously intact building with a shield construct that was so enormous it blocked Kyle from view almost completely. 

One of the monsters could see him, though, and was reaching out ominously slowly, in Jason’s opinion, waiting for its moment to lash out and crush Kyle.

And if Jason was gonna go out, he was gonna make it worth his while. He changed direction mid-step, sprinting toward the rubble of the bank building. The one remaining wall still stood tall, at least enough that Jason could grapple up to the top and leap across to the next intact roof. 

He steadied himself, following the alien's tentacle with his eyes. With a deep breath, he leaped off the side of the building, reaching out to grab the tentacle and diverting the beast's attention. With a move he'd learned from Dick, he swung his legs up and twisted around so that he was sitting on the tentacle, wrapping both his arms and his legs around the thing so it couldn't throw him off.

He heard Dick shouting his name from somewhere vaguely to his left, but he didn't have time to respond before the monster processed the fact that he was there and started shaking him violently. 

The hardest thing, Jason thought nonsensically, was holding on and trying to stay alive when he knew he had to die. He considered letting go, allowing the alien to just fling him away into the rubble of Gotham.

And then he heard Kyle's voice, calling his name. Screaming his name. 

He felt the impact on the monster when Kyle's construct hit it, right in the face, and a split second later he was dropping to the ground, the world still spinning around him. He was definitely concussed. He vaguely registered movement out of the corner of his eye, faster than his vision could clear--a big, dark shape whipping toward him--and he braced himself. _This is it_, he thought. _Here we go._

And then there was a scream, and his vision blurred green, and a particularly strong breeze blew him over where he was kneeling. He looked up, and suddenly _Kyle_ was there, in all his verdant glory, holding at least two monsters back where they were pushing to break through his constructs. And Jason couldn't breathe suddenly, because the look on Kyle's face was absolutely terrifying. And so, _so_ goddamn beautiful. 

He was glowing, Jason thought, getting slowly to his feet. He took off his helmet, leaving only his domino beneath. The power flowing through Kyle, holding the aliens back as they battered at his shield constructs, radiated off him in waves of green, somehow brighter than before, and suddenly the green was so bright Jason was blinking in the light, shielding his eyes with one hand.

Kyle shouted something inaudible, and Jason heard the low, semi-robotic timbre of his ring answering him. The light grew brighter and brighter, and to Jason at least, the battle around them had ground to a halt. He could hear Dick, reporting over comms to the others, and he reached up and tore his comm out of his ear. The light was so overwhelming now that Jason could barely see Kyle at the center of it, couldn’t detect any hint of Kyle’s signature green amidst the white radiance that had burst forth.

And then the light flashed pure white, and the shockwaves rippled across the battlefield. Every last monster stopped dead in its tracks, turning to eyeball this new development. Jason barely even noticed the shift.

The white light dissipated, and Jason could pick out a figure, standing exactly where Kyle had been, only this being wore white, with a white mask over his eyes, in stark contrast with the black of his hair, the same length as Kyle’s—

It _was_ Kyle, all in white now, somehow. The waves of light had calmed, but a faint white glow still rolled off him, languid as low tide. The monsters he’d been holding back lay unmoving, thoroughly beaten by the power of this new Kyle.

Kyle stood there for a moment, taking in his surroundings, readjusting to his new suit. Jason froze in place, swaying slightly and watching as Kyle’s jaw clenched with determination.

“Enough,” said Kyle, and he rose up into the air, his white aura intensifying. The invaders, already captivated by the melodrama of whatever was happening to Kyle right now, started to back away from Kyle, toward the spots where their ships had landed.

And when Kyle held a hand out, purplish crystals appeared around the head of the largest alien, wrapping around it like a sort of crown, and the monster turned and retreated, its comrades following behind it.

Jason watched Kyle watching them go. The crash landing of their huge ships had flattened so much of the city, and when they lifted off they left only rubble and debris in their wake. Gotham had fallen, and if this was how they had managed with Kyle on their side, Jason could only imagine how the other target cities had fared, not to mention the towns and villages without a resident defense squadron.

Kyle touched down once the ships were out of sight, immediately looking around for Jason. “Jay?” he called, and Jason waved, his heart in his throat. This Kyle—_his_ Kyle—Jason had let him down again, and there would be another loop, and Jason couldn’t even care, because Kyle had saved what was left of Gotham and immediately looked for _him_.

All he could think was that it was the end of the goddamned world they’d known and that if that was the price he had to pay for the way Kyle was looking at him now, maybe it was worth it. Like—like the world had ended but it didn’t even matter. Like the way Jason felt as he picked his way across the sea of debris.

“You—I—are you okay?” No major injuries, at least none visible to Jason. A nasty-looking gash across Kyle’s right shoulder, sure, but that was treatable, and the way Kyle was limping slightly as he crossed the uneven ground didn’t seem to be too serious.

“Yeah, it’s…I’m okay. I’m fine, Jason, are you—?” Panic started to mount in Jason’s chest when he heard Kyle’s voice that strangled, like he was too shaken to try to regulate the level of emotion coming through in his voice and, god, Jason couldn’t help but to reach out and pull Kyle into his arms, earning a tiny, startled squeak for his troubles.

Jason wanted to go back, wanted to tell Imra to _do it now, send us back_ so that he could fix this for Kyle, but no rift opened in the sky, no bright flash of light illuminated the ruins of Gotham and rewound the timeline.

He should have known Kyle wouldn’t stop surprising him now.

“We did it, Jay,” Kyle whispered, his lips moving against Jason’s shoulder. “We ended the time loop.”

Jason sucked in a sharp breath, pulling back a little to look at Kyle. “You—you remembered?” He started to feel dizzy, his stress and confusion making the pressure in his concussed brain rise to a fever pitch.

Kyle smiled fondly up at Jason. “How could I forget you?” he asked, reaching up to run his thumb gently over a bruise on Jason’s cheek, and Jason’s vision blacked out.

_Finally_, he thought. _We’ll take it from the top._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this took me FOREVER to write im so sorry for making yall wait <3 i hope the length of this chapter makes up for it!!!   
unless im very much mistaken the next chapter will be our last :( poor jay is just about at the end of his rope and i don't want to put him through too much more lol.   
as always, your love and comments and kudos on this story keep me going so i wanted to say a HUGE thank you for that. y'all are the best for real.   
anyway, i hope this didn't hurt you too much and i'll be back (soon, i think) with the last chapter!!! <3  
lots of love,  
joey
> 
> \--
> 
> follow me on twt: twitter.com/saturngirlstan  
ask me questions/talk about headcanons: curiouscat.me/saturngirlstan  
burning through the trees ~official playlist~: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/14u9vBX5wjfyYp4NiMS97d?si=JrgOz_0hTyi_H800t-14Hg


	5. take me as you please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> our ending, their beginning :)

Jason opened his eyes. This was…not his bedroom. “What the—“ he said, out loud, and then a hand was on his forehead, gently smoothing back his hair. Jason turned his head, startled, and immediately gasped in pain. His head felt like one of those giant aliens had sat on —

He sat up, ignoring the stabbing pains that the motion incurred. “Hey, hey, Jason, don’t—“ and Jason turned his head, carefully, and that was…that was Kyle. In his White Lantern suit.

“We didn’t reboot,” Jason said, voice breaking. “We were supposed to reboot, I was supposed to—Kyle, all those people—“

Kyle slid his arms around Jason, pulled him closer. “Hey, hey, shh. I know. I know, Jay.” One of Kyle’s hands was on the back of Jason’s neck, supporting his head as if he was afraid Jason would just keel back over. Jason pulled back.

For the first time, he took a look at their surroundings. They were…still on the battlefield, in the center of Gotham. The sun had begun to set, and the darkening pinks and oranges of the skies somehow softened the stark ruins that surrounded them. Jason could hear the other bats around them, aiding in the rescue efforts and trying to salvage whatever they could.

“How long was I out?” Jason asked, searching the sky for any sign of the rift. This wasn’t over, he was sure of it.

“Mmm,” Kyle hummed quietly, considering the question. “Three minutes, maybe? I was thinking about moving you in a couple more minutes. What do you remember?”

It sort of hurt to look at Kyle, Jason thought, what with the glowing white aura that surrounded him. He hadn’t had the benefit of a reboot to clear his concussion yet, and the light made his head pound. He shut his eyes, feeling the grounding weight of Kyle’s hand still on his arm. “I—we—you saved me. I was supposed to die and you saved me? And you remembered the loop, but that’s impossible, right?”

He opened his eyes halfway, watched Kyle shake his head. “I remembered, Jay. I remembered _you_.”

They were sitting on the ground, Jason noticed, some measure of awareness starting to return to him. “You turned white,” he said, voice almost accusatory.

Kyle laughed. “Yeah.”

“And what does that even _mean_?” Jason knew about Red Lanterns, and he’d heard about Star Sapphires, and a couple of others. Seven, in total, he thought. White was a new one for him.

“White,” Kyle said, “is the combination of all seven colors in the spectrum. A Life-Lantern, it’s called, sometimes.” He held out his hand, and tiny lantern symbols popped into existence, like miniature multicolored fireworks.

Jason stared. “So you’re, like, a super-Lantern now? You can use all of them?”

“I—yeah. I’d been working on it for awhile,” Kyle’s cheeks were pink with embarrassment. It was sweet, Jason thought. “It wasn’t until…I—“ he cut himself off.

“You saw me nearly die,” Jason finished.

“I—yeah.” Kyle looked at Jason, as if to gauge his reaction. “When I saw you…about to get…you know. It triggered my memories of the loop, I think. And I remembered…everything. And I just looked at you, and I felt—I knew I had to save you. And so I did.”

And they were in the middle of the ruins of Jason’s city, surrounded by crumbling buildings and probably bodies, but Jason forgot all that.

“Kyle…” he breathed, quietly, wonderingly. Kyle stared back at him, biting his lip gently.

And Jason knew it was only a matter of time before Imra decided enough was enough and rebooted them; only a matter of time before Kyle forgot all this again, but he didn’t care, somehow. He reached out a hand, placing it gently on top of Kyle’s, and the shiver that ran through Kyle’s body was visible as he turned his hand over and laced their fingers together.

“We did it, Jason,” Kyle said, voice quiet and so fucking soft. “We ended the loop. You and me.”

Jason kissed him. He couldn’t help it, really, not with Kyle, glowing bright white, sitting there holding his hand. Kyle, telling him that actually, it was his need to save _Jason_ that had made him this powerful. Kyle, radiating life and surety and pure _power_ but looking at Jason like he was something precious. Jason just couldn’t help himself.

So he leaned in and pressed their lips together, slowly at first, and Kyle gasped, as if he hadn’t seen this coming, as if he hadn’t been leaning in for the past five minutes, getting closer and closer to Jason.

The white light Kyle radiated was warm, or maybe that was all Kyle, but either way Jason felt like he was burning with need, with the pure delight of having Kyle so close. Kyle’s hands were everywhere, running through his hair and trailing down his back, ghosting carefully over his ribs.

Kyle pulled back, leaned his forehead against Jason’s. “Jason, honey,” he said, and Jason sobbed aloud, buried his face in Kyle’s shoulder. He could feel Kyle’s fingers running through his hair, soothing and slow.

They clung to each other, quiet for some time, until Jason pulled back, reached for Kyle’s hand again. “You died,” he said, barely above a whisper, and Kyle nodded.

“So did you,” he said seriously, eyes solemn. “But we made it, honey. We made it.”

Jason pushed Kyle’s hair out of his eyes. “You don’t understand, Ky, they’re gonna come back, and I’m gonna have to—“

Kyle squeezed Jason’s hand. “It’s over, Jay,” he said, cutting Jason off. “I swear it’s over.”

Jason shook his head, ignoring the renewed pounding that resulted. “It’s not! It’s not, you didn’t meet them, Kyle, they told me—they said you weren’t supposed to die, the time loop was anchored on your death—“ Jason _hated_ being concussed. His words betrayed him, didn’t come out the way he wanted them to.

“Hold on, hold on. Who told you this?”

And so Jason told Kyle about the tenth loop, about getting punched out by Jacques and the telepathic link with Imra. About the mechanics of the loop Brainiac-5 had created, and how the event that had anchored the loop was Kyle’s death.

“They’re gonna come back, Kyle, they’re gonna reboot us again, and next time, I swear, I’m going to die. And I’ll save you. And _then_ it’ll be over.” He couldn’t look directly at Kyle—the look on his face was too stricken.

“No,” said Kyle.

“That’s what has to happen, Kyle, it’s the only way to break the loop. I have to—“

“No,” Kyle repeated. “No, I won’t let you.”

Jason stared, dumbfounded, as Kyle’s white aura grew brighter, clearly fueled by emotion. “Kyle, it’s not your decision, we _have_ to stop the time loop.“

“You fucking _dying_ is not going to end the loop! You tried that already!” Jason froze. “_Think_, Jay. If the issue was you dying the loop would have ended two reboots ago.”

“But—“

“No, Jay, seriously. Think about it. Did these people tell you outright that you had to die?”

“I—“ Jason thought about it for a moment. “No, I guess? I just inferred it and then they stared at me and then the wall exploded?”

Kyle ran his thumb gently over Jason’s knuckles. “What if,” he said softly, “what if this was the outcome they were looking for?” He ignored Jason’s protests. “Hear me out, Jason, listen. I’m alive. You saved me, successfully, and then I saved you. Maybe the reason my death was the wrong outcome was because I wasn’t around to save you.”

Jason floundered, stunned into silence. Something was burning in his chest, a mix of hope and fear and confusion. “It was you,” he said slowly, putting the pieces together. “You had to become the White Lantern, Kyle. It was you all along. _This_ is their desired outcome.” He gestured to Kyle’s white suit.

Kyle thought about it, nodded slowly. “So it’s over,” he said. “We really did it.” And for all of Kyle’s confidence earlier, he sounded like he had just now started to believe.

Jason laid his head on Kyle’s shoulder, closed his eyes as Kyle wrapped an arm around his waist. “We did it,” he repeated softly. It felt bizarre to be celebrating their success in the midst of the ruined city, Jason thought. All around them, people were dead and displaced, and all Jason could think about was that Kyle had lived. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself not to cry again, but of course Kyle noticed anyway.

“C’mon,” Kyle said, all gentleness as he helped Jason to his feet, wrapped one strong arm around him. “Let’s get out of here.” He lifted off the ground seamlessly, carrying Jason with him seemingly effortlessly.

Flying was not in Jason’s wheelhouse. He clung to Kyle’s shoulders, closing his eyes and hiding his face in the White Lantern suit to protect himself from the whipping winds and the rather extreme views. He could practically feel Kyle’s exhilaration, though, could tell that Kyle was holding back to avoid freaking him out any more than he already was. Jason grinned lightly, pressing his lips to Kyle’s shoulder. It was hard to imagine what he could possibly have done to deserve this kind of happiness.

Kyle set them down in front of the ruins of Jason’s apartment building. This was the first time Jason had seen the devastation from the exterior of the building, but the damage was just as shocking from this vantage point.

Jason crouched down, peering through the ruins to see if anything was salvageable. He caught a glimpse of the slipcovers on his couch, torn to shreds, and he was pretty sure the metal bars just beyond that belonged to his bed frame. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes once again.

“Jay, look,” called Kyle, from a short distance away. Jason looked up. Kyle had found his plant—the one he’d knocked over coming in the window. Kyle carried it over to Jason, a wide grin on his face. “This little guy survived,” he said.

The plant had been totally crushed, its stem snapped in half, so Jason could be forgiven for feeling a little dubious. “You sure?” he asked, peering at the plant and then glancing back up at Kyle, who _winked_ at him.

“Watch this,” said Kyle, and brought his free hand up next to the plant’s stem. The white glow intensified again, and the plant straightened itself out until it looked exactly like it had this morning. “All good,” said Kyle, satisfied.

Jason stared. “First of all, never wink at me again.” Kyle nodded in solemn agreement. “Second of all, Ky, that is fucking incredible. You just—Jesus, Kyle, what _can’t_ you do now?”

“Not really sure, to be honest,” Kyle said, placing the plant gently down on the ground. He took Jason’s hand. “But what do you say we try to figure it out together, honey?”

Jason rolled his eyes, grinning. “Smooth talker,” he teased, pulling Kyle in close. “I guess I could be convinced.”

And when Kyle stretched up on his tiptoes to kiss him, Jason thought he could get used to this. The dust was still settling and nothing would ever be the same, but if Kyle just kissed him like this every once in awhile, he was pretty sure things would still be okay.

“We’ll be alright, Jay,” said Kyle against his lips, unknowingly echoing his thoughts.

Jason hummed, running a hand through Kyle’s hair. He pulled back, looked Kyle right in the eyes. “Yeah,” he said, leaning in for another kiss. “We’ll be alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end the end the end!!! please let me know what you think :) i love these boys so much and i hope i did them justice!
> 
> there're a couple of people i want to thank for their support!!! first off, sweet mina, for always being down to listen to me yell about my dumb boys. the jaykyle warriors gc on twitter--y'all are the best truly. meri!!! who is always so excited to read more it makes me soft <3
> 
> also big thanks to my twitter followers who indulge my tomfoolery and for whatever reason don't unfollow me lmao
> 
> this is the first fic ive ever finished so im really excited! i hope you all have enjoyed :)
> 
> \--
> 
> follow me on twt: twitter.com/saturngirlstan  
ask me questions/talk about headcanons: curiouscat.me/saturngirlstan  
burning through the trees ~official playlist~: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/14u9vBX5wjfyYp4NiMS97d?si=JrgOz_0hTyi_H800t-14Hg


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